This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

"Just a domestic"

Success story

A woman raped at knifepoint by her ex-partner delayed in reporting it to the police, because the police had consistently refused to do anything about his previous harassment and violence, and had instead helped him to persecute her (by delivering demands for child support, etc). The woman, who is Black, didn't report the rape at first because she thought she had no evidence, and it would be "her word against his" yet again. When she found she was pregnant as a result of the rape, she did report it – only to meet a continuing refusal on the part of the police and CPS to take the medical evidence seriously and proceed to prosecution. WAR helped her get the case re-opened, and after a shocking meeting with a special lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, is now taking it higher. Watch this space!